Episode 4: Deer Damage, Leaf Drop, and Fall Planting — Here’s What to Know

Colleen Dieter’s Compost Tea Recipe for Soil Drenching

From ATXGardens.com

Equipment:

5 gallon bucket for brewing

Aquarium bubbler with air tube and pumice stone on the end

Something to weigh down the pumice stone like a washer around the end of the air tube or a brick

Use rain water or untreated well water if possible- chlorine and chloramine in city water will reduce the microbe population but it is still worth making the tea even with city water

More buckets or watering can for applying

Watering can or buckets for diluting and applying

Ingredients:

2 Cups Horticultural Molasses

2 Cups Liquid Seaweed

2 Cups Liquid Fish Emulsion

2 Cups Liquid Humate

3 pounds worm castings

3 pounds finished compost

3 pounds aged leaf mold, aged wood mulch or aged mushroom blocks

Brewing:

Put pumice stone in bucket so it is sitting on bottom of bucket. Combine all ingredients in the 5 gallon bucket. Fill the bucket the rest of the way with water. Turn on the aquarium bubbler and let it run for 24 hours. You may want to put a lid on the bucket to keep critters out of it… but be sure not to crimp the air tube.

After 24 hours the liquid should be frothy and smell earthy. During cooler weather it may take an extra day to brew. Don’t let it brew for more than 3 days. If the tea smells like vinegar or ammonia do not use it.

Application:

5 gallons of brewed compost tea should be diluted 4 times with water to make a total of 20 gallons. Use watering cans (without a rose on the spout) or buckets to dilute the brew and dump it on the ground around the plants. It is also ok for all of the solid ingredients to get dumped on the ground too. If they get clumpy then use a rake or cultivator to spread them out.

This is a natural process and the recipe is very flexible. Do not worry about it, just make it and if it smells good use it. Even if you are missing some ingredients or don’t have the right quantity of an ingredient just keep making it.

You can strain out the solid ingredients or use an old sock/panty hose/pillowcase as a tea bag if you want to apply the tea using a sprayer or injector. I find this too tedious so that is why I started the soil drench method instead.

Use on problem areas with compacted soil once monthly for 6 months.

For general soil maintenance use in Spring, Fall and Winter.

In hot summer months use a soil activator instead.